Maine Gardener: Get ready for an explosion of stunning peonies

Peony season is approaching its peak, and barring a long spell of cool, damp weather, this should be a great year for the huge and stunning flowers.

“They are early,” said Ken Liberty of Bangor, immediate past president of the Maine Peony Society, who will be holding an open house at his peony garden on Saturday and June 23. “I would say about a week early in my garden. And they are in great shape, taller than ever and doing very well.”

Additional Photos

Liberty said that with the early season, he expects there will be more blooms this Saturday, but there will still be plenty for people to see if they visit June 23.

Liberty and Elizabeth Babb, who has been growing peonies in Cumberland for decades, say that if you plant the right varieties, you can have peony blossoms for about six weeks — not on a single plant, but on different varieties of plants.

Babb said her first peony this year bloomed May 12, and she expects to have some in blossom on the Fourth of July.

Bob Bittenbender, grounds manager at Maine Audubon Society’s Gilsland Farm in Falmouth, said the peonies are in good shape, and he thinks he guessed well in picking Wednesday as the date for the peony festival at the farm. He just hopes the recent rainy weather does not continue as the blossoms open, which can cause major damage.

Nancy and I do not claim to be in the same class as Liberty, Babb and Bittenbender when it comes to growing peonies, but we had one cream-colored peony — a Chinese woodland variety called “Willmottiae” from Plant Delights Nursery in North Carolina — that bloomed about May 15. And we have a wonderful red tree peony that bloomed over the last week of May.

Our traditional herbaceous peonies now have buds the size of ping-pong balls that could be coming into bloom about the time you read this.

Local nurseries sell potted peonies throughout the spring and summer, but peony aficionados buy their peonies bare root in the fall.

“If you get them in the fall, they have been dug up when they are going dormant, and they are in better condition and more likely to survive,” Babb said. “And when you buy bare root, you can see what you are getting; you see the whole root. You don’t know how much root there is in the pot.”

Babb did say that the nursery stock of potted peonies is much better than when she first moved back to Maine after her working career.

“I think a lot of the nurseries are getting them from White Flower Farm, and they do a great job,” she said.

The key to getting good blooms on your peonies is to not plant them too deep, Liberty said.

“When planting them, you have to make sure that the eyes of the peonies are not more than 1 to 2 inches below the surface of the ground,” he said.

Other than that, peonies do not need a lot of special care. Babb likes to give them about six hours of sunlight each day. Liberty says he has an urban lot with a lot of shade, and some of his peonies do fine on four or five hours of sunlight.

The soil should be a neutral pH, and not too damp. “You don’t want to over-fertilize, or you will get all leaves and no blooms,” Liberty said.

Babb prefers using a low-nitrogen, higher-phosphate fertilizer, but also stresses that you should not use too much of it.

And Bittenbender prefers to use super hummus as a fertilizer for the Maine Audubon peonies.

He said that when David Moulton, who donated Gilsland Farm to Maine Audubon, was growing peonies, they were on the farm fields. When Maine Audubon took over, the fields reverted to woods, and the peonies looked a little odd under the trees. They are now in a separate peony bed.

The two basic types of peonies are herbaceous peonies and tree peonies.

Liberty stressed that tree peonies are not trees, but rather small shrubs that lose their leaves in winter. They have a woody stem that stays above the ground all year, and some can grow to about 6 feet tall.

Herbaceous peonies die back to the ground each fall, and for that reason can be planted next to driveways or walks without worrying about any damage from piled snow.

But herbaceous peonies, especially those with heavier double blossoms, often have to be staked or otherwise supported with any variety of peony support.

Nancy uses bamboo stakes and string on a lot of our peonies, and metallic supports on some of them. The metallic supports that she likes come in pieces shaped like upside-down Ls, which you push into the ground and connect through a metallic loop. You can use three of the L-shaped brackets on a small peony, but use more if the peony is large.

At Gilsland Farm, the peonies are grown in rows in several formal beds. Bittenbender puts two stakes at each end of a row and two stakes in the middle, and runs 12-gauge electric fence wire along the stakes to keep the peonies standing.

Liberty’s home is at 23 Ohio St. in Bangor, and the Maine Peony Society requests a $2 donation from visitors. The money goes to a variety of nonprofit groups, including the Lyle Littlefield Garden at the University of Maine.

Gilsland Farm’s extensive collection of peonies can be viewed at any time. The society’s free Ice Cream Social and Peony Bloom is scheduled for 6:30 to 8 p.m. Wednesday.

GARDENS are just beginning to look really wonderful now. Peonies are in bloom, as mentioned above, but it is the middle of June. And in Maine, that means it is peak time for flowering plants.

The eighth annual Secret Gardens of Portland Tour will be held from 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Saturday to benefit the Opportunity Alliance’s Foster Grandparents and Senior Companion programs.

Tickets cost $17.50 in advance at opportunityalliance.org, by calling 773-0202, or at Skillin’s Greenhouse, O’Donal’s or Big Sky Bread Co. They cost $20 the day of the show at tour headquarters at Reiche School.

Tom Atwell has been writing the Maine Gardener column since 2004. He is a freelance writer who gardens in Cape Elizabeth, and can be contacted at 767-2297 or at:

Here at MaineToday Media we value our readers and are committed to growing our community by encouraging you to add to the discussion.

To ensure conscientious dialogue we have implemented a strict no-bullying policy. To participate, you must follow our Terms of Use. Click here to flag and report a comment that violates our terms of use.